


Insatiable

by SecretAgentCodenameBob



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: After the lunch fiasco, Episode 4, M/M, Pining, so much regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 08:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6976351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretAgentCodenameBob/pseuds/SecretAgentCodenameBob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major Lance Corkoran had made perhaps the greatest mistake of his life. He knew it would destroy him. He only partly regretted it.</p><p>[Set after Episode Four]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insatiable

**Author's Note:**

> “Don’t let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.”  
> ~ Anthony Trollope

A man with appetite. Roper liked those. And Major Lance Corkoran- Well, ‘a man with appetite’ was practically Corky’s moniker, his epithet so to speak. He prized his appetite. At least, he had done.

Corky sat, one leg lazily dipped in the pool’s water, the clear water not quite cool enough to be numbing yet. That was frustrating. A half-empty wine bottle stood on one side, a glass left forgotten on his other. His hand ghosted over the bottle neck.

Ever since he had discovered the delights of alcohol Corky had always preferred to drink straight from the bottle. There was something beautifully perverted in turning wine, regarded by so many as the picture of refinement, into something base, visceral.

Stealing back the pompous airs, the pantomime, the farce which was so indulged and expected with every rough, obscene swallow. He always enjoyed it at parties; making eye contact with some well-dressed suit, his lips wrapped around the neck and just drinking. Taunting. Daring them to do something. 

The deer in the headlights looks they always, _always_ gave him, the red flush creeping across their skin, desperate attempts to avert their gaze from such an _obscene_ spectacle...it was sometimes more intoxicating than the drink.

More often than not he would get to taste more than wine in his hotel room later that evening.

Yet appetite came with a cost. Corky knew that. He’d always known that. However, with some sort of luck he had avoided any truly serious displays of gluttony. His virtues had outshone his vices, no matter how lascivious - Roper never seemed to mind. As long as it didn’t interfere with the job, didn’t harm their reputation Corky could consume whatever and whoever he wanted.

But then came Thomas Quince. Andrew Birch. Jonathan Pine.

Corky hissed out a short, strangled noise which almost passed for laughter. Just trying to think of a name reminded him of the poison Cork _knew_ that man was. He was bile and scum and _poison_ -

So why was he so desperate to taste it?

No, do away with the name, the many masks. Just think of _him_.

Corky remembered the first time he’d seen him, walking into that little chalet. It had been normal, the haze of contentment and leisure over their lives undisturbed and undefiled. He had shattered that like a bullet through glass.

Corky had known attractive men, slept with many, lusted after many more. Yet, something about _him_ had pulled him in even then. It was magnetic, unquantifiable. He was vertigo, pure and potent, and Corky was standing on the edge, slipping, falling into darkness over and over.

It appeared this...effect was not limited to himself. Over the rest of their brief and frustratingly platonic acquaintance Corky could actually feel the air change whenever the man walked into the room. Every eye was drawn to those lithe muscles, half-cocked smile, sand hair. There was those who were obvious (him), others who hid their desire in furtive glances and concealed sighs (Jed) and others who obstinately looked anywhere but him (Frisky). Even Roper couldn’t help the occasional appreciative gaze, although it always held a strange combination of paternal pride and constricted want.

Every look made something primal, possessive flare up in Corky’s stomach. Everything felt twisted and warped, like somehow Pine had crawled inside him and sliced through his organs with his teeth. What made it worse was that Pine didn’t ever look at him with anything other than steel; cold, biting. That dismissiveness only made Corky want _more_.

Because he could have anything. Apart from him.

And that body. Even the most finite memories; swimming, running, just _sitting_ in that damn suit- since when was sitting sexy- Corky licked his lips. He rested the bottle on the stone floor and leant backwards, breathing in the cool evening air.

The sharp tang sticking to the back of his throat felt like it was sucking all the moisture from his mouth. He swallowed. And swallowed again.

It had never been this bad before. Corky felt like he’d been propelled back decades, once again some unsatisfied teenager who couldn’t get anyone to even look at him twice. Nothing more than a boy, holding out a stupid stick of lavender, flushed with embarrassment, desperate for attention. The boy had laughed, slapped the flowers to the ground, blue eyes shining as he spat in little Lance’s face. Utter humiliation which hurt to even remember.

But this was different. This made him ache for that rejection because Pine’s blue eyes didn’t look at him and see power, didn't see anything at all - he just saw someone in the way.

Corky let out a low moan. He was _burning_ , from the inside out Pine was setting his blood, his skin on fire. He needed release, needed to breathe, needed cool. His alcohol addled brain suggested rolling into the pool, just let out your breath and allow the water to swallow you up.

Corky released a hysterical burst of giggles. Look at him! So pathetic. Drunk, pining- ha, _pining_ after some little rat who’d weaseled his way into his position. Usurped his power in what felt like no time at all and Corky was _furious_ , really he was. But that heat was so easy to confuse with something else and all the wires had gotten crossed.

He’d always wanted Pine. Now he wanted him to pay, to suffer, to beg. He wanted to take him apart just like he was doing to Corky right now. Sitting on the veranda for the whole world to see, half gone already without even being touched.

He let out another moan. Unbidden, memories scrapped into his mind. Lunch. Lobster. Shouting. He’d messed up. Finally given in and touched to untouchable and now he couldn't stop because before he hadn't known but the memories of feeling him, touching him, hands greedy and everywhere, sliding down his body to kneel-

Corky _never_ kneeled. But hell, if he wouldn’t get on his knees for Jonathan Pine. Wouldn’t do anything to watch him come apart at _his_ lips, _his_ touch, _his_ tongue. Corky sucked in a breath between teeth. Pine losing control, cool poise and self-control slipping from him as easily as his clothes would. Shedding skin to reveal the real snake beneath.

Poison indeed, but Corky had never been thirstier for a drink from the most insidious well. 

“Corky.”

Lazily, blood still bubbling and head light from the fumes of lust, Corky turned his head to look at-

“Oh, hello pretty little thing. What’s keeping you up?” 

Jed looked decidedly unimpressed, a hint of steel to her eyes as she regarded the man. The object of desire for his, _his_ Pine. 

“Go to bed Corky.”

Immediately the smile on his face turned sour. 

Stumbling the man got to his feet, shakily making his way towards the woman, ever the picture of youthful beauty. So right for Pine, the perfect opposite, not like Corky so old, so short, so wrong-

“What does he taste like?” He had stopped right in front of her, barely keeping balance (just how much had he had?) and resisting the urge to use her for support.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She crossed her arms and- oh, body language my dear. You should know better.

“Our boy. You know the one.” He spoke under his breath, low and dark and hell, he sounded ragged. Images of Pine still flickered behind his eyelids. “What does he taste like?”

Jed clenched her jaw. No matter, Corky could talk for both of them. “I _know_ by now you must have given in. Goodness knows anyone else would have if those pretty eyes looked at them the way they look at you. So, since you have been graced with this gift tell this poor sinner…. _what does he taste like_.”

 _Crack_.

He didn’t register that he’d been slapped for a few seconds. There was silence, just the stark ringing in his ears and heavy breathing on both of their sides. The physical pain blooming on his left cheek felt welcome, real.

“I’m going to bed. I would advise you to do the same.”

Corky really regretted drinking so much. He’d already done enough to shame him for the rest of his life, to fuel huge embarrassment and regret but now he couldn't stop, couldn't stop the word from tumbling from his mouth-

“ _Please_.” His voice came out so quiet, such a whine that he only knew she’d heard it because she stopped walking. “Please...you’ve no idea what he’s...what this is doing to me. Please.”

Jed paused, one hand on the wall. The still silence seemed to stretch for years.

“Lavender.”

Corky wasn't sure if he’d heard her, if that was just a machination of his deluded brain. But she was gone, disappeared into darkness and he was left alone. The white noise in his head stopped him from thinking. He needed to be alone, to be private before he fell apart.

He made his way to his room. It took a while; dark and drunk as he was. Yet he was practised at this, having performed the act for many years. But it felt different tonight. Like he’d been punched, beaten bruised and bloody. His legs gave way just before he reached the bed and he barely caught himself on the sheets, a long, deep groan tearing itself from his lips.

“ _Pine_.”

In a few moments he was buried, head first in the pillow. Breathing out that name over and over and over again, heat and anger and shame and want and loathing and lust roiling through his body, wracking shudders. His skin felt sticky. Hot.

He had everything he could need now; touch, sight, smell, sound and finally, _finally_ taste. Lavender. Of course. Of course, the one taste which brought him right back to his childhood, back to powerlessness, back to weakness. 

That night seemed to go on forever, wrapped in endless dreams of pain and seduction so horrifically and beautifully intertwined he couldn’t breathe properly. He didn’t sleep. How could he? Pine was there, torturing and testing and burning him from the inside out. This was oblivion, then. The sweetest oblivion of all.

The next day Jed and him met eyes across the breakfast table. Nothing was said. Just a mutual understanding.

Part of him wanted to escape down to Pine’s cottage by the water, to see if Jed really had told the truth. He didn't. 

For the first time in Corky’s life he realised that he was truly a coward.

It was barely a few nights afterwards, a week possibly, that Corky found himself tumbling down sand and dirt, dust sticking to the back of his mouth. Jonathan Pine - he’d always known the man would destroy him. He had been destroying him since the moment they'd first met.

The worst part was, even as fist after fist, punch after punch battered and bruised their way into Major Lance Corkoran’s skin there was only thing he could think of. It twisted in his stomach and he would have smiled if he could have, if the pain hadn't been smothering him. As the world slipped away, very simply, he thought:

_So this is what it took to get him to touch me._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I wrote this after episode 5 aired and completely forgot about - only just found this thing so after patching it up thought I might as well post it. We need more angst-filled, despairing Corky fics wouldn't you agree?


End file.
